Air Canada to resume operations after making deal to end flight attendants' strike

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The union for Air Canada’s flight attendants said early Tuesday that it had reached a tentative agreement with the company to end the more than three-day-long strike that prompted Canada’s largest airline to cancel thousands of flights.

Flights will “gradually” resume operations on Tuesday night, Air Canada said in a statement, warning that the full restoration of services could take up to 10 days.

The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), which represents 10,000 flight attendants at Air Canada, wrote on social media that it had completed mediation with Air Canada and its subsidiary Air Canada Rouge and that the strike that began on Saturday had ended.

With this tentative agreement, the union said it was required to advise its members “that we must fully cooperate with resumption of operations.”

Air Canada said that mediation discussions began on the basis that the union would commit to have its flights attendants immediately return to work.

Thousands of Air Canada’s flight attendants walked off their jobs after negotiations for a new contract broke down, defying multiple orders by the government to return to their duties.

Part of the contract negotiations entailed raises, with the union saying that Air Canada’s flight attendants were paid less than those with similar experience working at smaller domestic carriers. The union was also seeking “ground pay” — compensation for the hours that attendants work at the airport, such as when passengers are boarding. Other airlines, including Alaska, American and Delta, offer ground pay for flight attendants.

The strike caused significant disruptions in Canada and abroad — Air Canada grounded nearly 2,600 flights as of late Monday afternoon, according to data provided by aviation analytics firm Cirium — affecting more than 500,000 customers.

“The suspension of our service is extremely difficult for our customers. We deeply regret and apologize for the impact on them of this labour disruption. Our priority now is to get them moving as quickly as possible,” Michael Rousseau, president and chief executive of Air Canada, said in a Tuesday statement.

The day the strike began, the Canadian government asked an independent federal tribunal to order the flight attendants to return to work and submit to binding arbitration. The union refused to comply and then defied a second deadline from the tribunal on Monday to resume work.